1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrophotographic photosensitive member, particularly to an electrophotographic photosensitive member having a member comprising a specific resin.
The present invention relates also to an electrophotographic apparatus, a device unit, and a facsimile machine employing the above electrophotographic photosensitive member.
2. Related Background Art
Generally, an electrophotographic photosensitive member (hereinafter simply referred to as a "photosensitive member") is constituted of a photosensitive drum which is made of a cylindrical support and a photosensitive layer formed thereon, and a drum flange and/or a drum gear which is bonded with an adhesive to the one end or the both ends of the photosensitive drum for rotating the photosensitive drum. On driving the photosensitive member, a high rotational torque is applied to the drum flange or the drum gear. Therefore the drum flange or the drum gear is made of a polycarbonate resin having high adhesiveness to the photosensitive drum support which is usually made of aluminum.
On the other hand, polyacetal resins are widely used as mechanical parts such as gears, rollers, bearings and screws because of their superiority in fatigue resistance, abrasion resistance, moldability, size stability, and so forth. Further, polyacetal resins are inexpensive and have low molding-temperature compared with polycarbonate resins. The polyacetal resins, however, cannot be bonded with an adhesive owing to their high solvent resistance. Accordingly, screw fixing, ultrasonic bonding, heat bonding, caulking, and the like method are employed for bonding the polyacetal resin to other members. Such bonding methods are disadvantageous in simplification of the production process, cost reduction, and mass-production in comparison with the adhesive bonding.